Ongan Languages

Ongan Languages

Ongan, or South Andamanese, is a small family of two languages, Önge and Jarawa, spoken in the southern Andaman Islands:

The two extant languages are:

  • Önge or Onge; 96 speakers (Onge) in 1997, mostly monolingual
  • Jarawa or Järawa; estimated at 200 speakers (Jarawa) in 1997, monolingual

A third language, Jangil, extinct sometime between 1895 and 1920, is reported to have been unintelligible with but to have had noticeable connections with Jarawa.

Read more about Ongan Languages:  Classification, Grammar, Bibliography

Famous quotes containing the word languages:

    The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.
    Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)